Refined Enumeration of Noncrossing Chains and Hook Formulas

Abstract

In the combinatorics of finite Coxeter groups, there is a simple formula giving the number of maximal chains of noncrossing partitions. It is a reinterpretation of a result by Deligne which is due to Chapoton, and the goal of this article is to refine the formula. First, we prove a one-parameter generalization, by considering the enumeration of noncrossing chains where we put a weight on some relations. Second, we consider an equivalence relation on noncrossing chains coming from the natural action of the group on set partitions, and we show that each equivalence class has a simple generating function. Using this we recover Postnikov’s hook length formula in type A and obtain a variant in type B.